Simard absent as GPR candidates trio debate issues one last time

Three of
the six candidates vying to become the next MPP for
Glengarry-Prescott-Russell spent Tuesday evening in Russell for one last
public debate before the June 7 election polls open. But Progressive
Conservative candidate Amanda Simard wasn’t one of them.

The
Ontario Party’s Joël Charbonneau, Darcy Neal Donnelly of the Libertarian
Party, and Liberal candidate Pierre Leroux (seen from left to right in
photo with moderator Del Jones) spent about an
hour and a half explaining their views on a variety of issues to an
audience of a couple dozen voters gathered in the Russell High School
gym.

Simard was
absent from the debate, continuing a trend all through the official
campaign period during which she has refused to take part in either
editorial roundtable sessions with EAP and regional
media or in any of the campaign debate events organized by media or
community groups.

“Our
Progressive Conservative candidate hides from the press, hides from the
public,” said Leroux during his opening remarks Tuesday night in
Russell. “I know her record at the municipal level, and
the last thing she wants is for people to find out her real self.”

The
Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation District 26 (OSSTF)
sponsored the debate and invited all six candidates to take part.
Organizers received word from NDP candidate Bonnie Jean-Louis
that she was unable to attend because of a prior commitment while Simard
declined to attend as she was concentrating on her door-to-door
campaign. No response on the invitation was received from Green Party
candidate Daniel Reid.

Both
Simard and Reid were also absent for the May 31 debate in Embrun set up
by TFO, the francophone television network. Reid declined to attend
because he couldn’t speak French while Simard was
occupied with her door-to-door campaign.

Debate
questions Tuesday evening focused on daycare, taxation, the minimum
wage, health care, education, and hydro. All three candidates agreed
that Ontario hydro rates are high but they disagreed
on the best way to deal with that issue when asked if the government
should turn back the clock on Hydro One privatization during the former
Mike Harris PC government and make it a Crown corporation again.

“It (Hydro One) should belong to the public,” said Charbonneau, “and it should be run as profit-neutral.”

“We love
competition,” said Donnelly, adding the Libertarian Party favours
increasing competition in the energy marketplace by encouraging
small-scale power outfits and doing away with what he called
“a single government or corporate monopoly”.

Leroux
noted said that the Liberal government has been dealing with years of
past neglect of the province’s energy system by previous NDP and
Progressive Conservative governments. He said that from
1960 to 2000 those governments favoured using profits from electricity
sales to help keep hydro rates down instead of investing the money into
fixing or replacing Hydro One’s aging infrastructure.

On the
education issue, Charbonneau proposed greater emphasis on trades as a
post-secondary option for high school students. He said that would help
deal with the problem many university and college
students face of having huge debts after graduation and few high-paying
jobs available in some of their chosen fields of study.

For health
and senior care issues, both Leroux and Charbonneau favoured more
government investment in services like home nursing care and support for
community-based health care, including rural
hospitals. Donnelly said the Libertarian philosophy is for a free-market
setup where people choose who they want to see and pay for their health
care needs.

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